The Ashen Pumpkins
Billy Corgan and co. are still churning out music, but is it good?
If you were alive in the 1990s, you were treated to the beautiful cacophony of sound that was contemporary music. Many of genres popular in that decade had of course existed beforehand (cowboy country and midriff mall-pop, among others), but grunge was in a league of its own. Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, The Smashing Pumpkins, Jane’s Addiction, Stone Temple Pilots and Mudhoney exploded onto the scene. These bands often fused the opposing elements of beauty and foulness in not just their names but in their dramatic fashion, lyrics, and attitude. Oh, such angsty attitude:
Teenage angst has paid off well.
“Serve The Servants”, Nirvana
My first exposure to The Smashing Pumpkins was around 1997, when I discovered their third album, Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. I was 14 years old and didn’t have a clue that it had garnered seven Grammy nominations, but I knew I had heard nothing like it and I liked it. With 28 tracks spread across two CDs, the album had everything from the Olde English lyrics and gleeful harps in “Cupid de Locke” to absolute mayhem and vocal howlings in “Tales of a Scorched Earth”. One of my favorite tracks was “Galapagos”, a song about the ending of his marriage, where a question was eventually asked to my tender, teenage heart, who could only imagine such a scenario:
I won't deny the pain
I won't deny the change
And should I fall from grace
Here with you
Will you leave me too?
- “Galapagos”, Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Billy Corgan’s nasally voice was an acquired taste, but the whole package grabbed me. There was something immense about the sound, yet also very delicate. Blistering guitar leads and swarming, soothingly clean tones. The ability for a rock band to “do it all” was a new concept in my world. I had been listening to other bands who were much more straight-forward: Chevelle, Papa Roach, Fuel.
Lots of power chords. So many power chords.
Even the big hits that came from Melon Collie, like “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”, were incredibly well-arranged. Later on, I learned to play the guitar and sing and I realized how intriguing the instrument parts were on practically every song. There were still power chords, yes, but they were always complimented by at least one or two additional guitar or keyboard lines. With my newfound musical vocabulary, I began to understand just how deep the well ran as the band had progressed through their first three albums — Gish (1991), Siamese Dream (1993) and Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995). It was like watching a painter use more and more colors, while maintaining a cohesive, satisfying image.
A few years later, when the albums Adore (1998), Machina and Machina II (2000) came out, the Pumpkins’ sound changed but I was still buying what they were selling. More electronic elements were introduced, including virtual drums and sampled instruments, but the grunge was still there too, with buzzsaw guitars and gritty synths. My favorite song from Adore is “Behold! The Night Mare”, which begins with:
I've faced the fathoms in your deep
Withstood the suitors quiet siege
Pulled down the heavens just to please you
Appease you
The wind blows and I know
I can't go on, digging roses from you grave
To linger on, beyond the beyond
Where the willows weep
And whirlpools sleep, you'll find me
The coarse tide reflects sky
Wow. The painter was adding more colors to the palette again, only these were much more dark in hue. Where were we headed?
Unfortunately, a breakup.
You can read the full timeline of the band’s drama (including the breakup) for yourself, but the short answer is the band disbanded and a plethora of side projects were formed. There was a lot of mystery around whether the Pumpkins would ever reform again, even though Billy firmly said in 2005:
“You won’t see the four Smashing Pumpkins onstage again. That’s not going to happen.”
- Billy Corgan, May 3, 2005
However, in 2007, after Billy took out a full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune announcing his intentions to reunite the band, they did. Well, sort of. Only Billy and Jimmy Chamberlin (drummer) returned and recorded Zeitgeist (2007) while new musicians filled out the rest of the band for touring commitments. The band continued to record albums: Oceania (2012), Monuments to an Elegy (2014), Shiny and Oh So Bright, Vol. 1 (2018), Cyr (2020), Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts (2023, a supposed sequel to Melon Collie and Machina) and just 2 weeks ago, Aghori Mhori Mei (2024). Along the way, James Iha (original guitarist) rejoined the band as well, but D'arcy Wretzky (bass guitar) never did. See the earlier link about the band’s drama for the longer story on that.
Beat.
Now, to the point: How does the new music compare to the old? Are The Smashing Pumpkins still “smashing” or have their once-bold colors turned to grey?
I admit when I heard the band was reforming, and even after learning it was only going to be two of the four original members, I was extremely excited. I never had a chance to see the band live and I couldn’t wait to hear what the next step was going to sound like. When Zeitgeist dropped, I liked it but there was something funky going on with the mix. Billy’s voice seemed to have changed and some songs sounded very squashed, dynamically. However, I was able to see the band twice during that era and they were fantastic shows. Billy had famously said, “My diehard fans are stuck in 1993” so the setlists didn’t have many songs from anything earlier than Adore, but they were still great experiences. Then came Oceania, which had just about as many moments of greatness as moments of mediocrity and, worse, meandering. There was just something different about the songs that didn’t reach me the same way they did when I was 14. Was it just that I’m older and a different person now? Was it that Billy is older and different now? Of course, both of those are true, but one would think the things that are at the very core of a person will continue to ring true for their whole life. Somehow, I was okay with listening to the cryptic lyrics of Melon Collie’s “Stumbleine”, but not as okay with Billy yelling about quasars in a quasi-spiritual hard rock uptune.
There was also Billy’s grumpyness over fans’ desire for the band to “get back to basics” and make a straight-up rock album with just 2 guitars and a bass. A photo circulated of a frowning Billy, when he went with his family to a theme park, a place normally associated with exuberance and joy. Did Billy just not know how to be happy? Perhaps that’s why he was fine alienating his audience. If he can’t be happy then no one can. Well, he’s married now (to a woman 25 years his junior, which he began dating when she was 20 years old, according to People) so maybe he has figured out how to at least make himself happy. His wife is TBD.
Continuing on, I gave Monuments to an Elegy a chance but it was a hard listen. The songs just felt so uninspired. Why are the lyrics so…shallow?
Run to me, run to me
Run to me, run to me
Where the sun
Never leaves
Run to me, my special love
Run to me
At first perceptions of yourself
Who came and sung from where you are?
You can escape this, by someone else
Your lover?
“Run2Me” - Monuments to an Elegy
The instrumentation feels empty too. Gone are the complexities of power chord + interesting lead part or any new instruments. Honestly, I don’t think I listened to the album more than once. Then came Shiny and Oh So Bright, Vol. 1, which had more likability (I actually quite like the single, Solara, simple as it is) but still felt like a shadow of Melon Collie. If you haven’t figured it out by now, Melon Collie is what I consider their best album. Cyr was forgettable and Atum actually stunk, which is the only album I’ll say that about. It was supposed to be a sequel to Melon Collie and Machina but besides Billy’s claim that “lore” connects them, there is really nothing sonically that makes you think of one while listening to the other. If anything, I listen to Atum and think about what I’d rather be listening to.
This brings us to the new, surprise album, Aghori Mhori Mei, which came out August 2, 2024. I listened to it twice and…it’s okay. The social media push leading up to the album’s release teased that the band was “going back” to how they recorded things for the first few albums, without saying exactly what that meant. To most us, probably by design, it sounded optimistic…that the band was returning to the sound which gained them all their fame. The reality is that the album is still on the middle shelf, but hey, that’s better than the previous three albums (which I would consider bottom shelf).
So what is the painter doing now? It would appear that they have decided to not use a wide range of color anymore. In fact, no color at all. The pieces are still dramatic and interesting on some level, but lacking the depth, variety and (honestly) heart that lept into my ears in their earlier work. The new material is modern in its production and sensibilities, but outdated in something timeless: Soul. Am I looking at the past through rose-colored glasses? Maybe I am, but I’d rather see rose colors than none at all.
My buddy George just discovered the Pumpkins in the past 3 years. Love 'em. He's 69 like me. He missed the boat on most of the music of the 90's. I just sent him a playlist of the album... waiting on feedback. I thought it was ok. Have to give it a few more spins. Good write up! Thank you for sharing!
Great read. I am with you, the first four albums are my favorite. Zeitgeist was over-produced and the drums were deafening- it was almost as if Billy Corgan allowed Jimmy Chamberlain to go full throttle as an apology for kicking him out of the band previously.
My favorite song is Thirty-Three, it's sweet and mature, beautiful and a little awkward. I was a single mother in the 90s, and never got a chance to see the original lineup. But I did see them twice in the 2000s, one show was bloated and long and the other was at an electric dizzying pace that I absolutely loved. Billy was pissed off in the latter show, because it was part of a showcase with three other bands playing before The Pumpkins (two of the three were Jimmy Eat World and Cage the Elephant.) All the bands were great that night, but Cage the Elephant stole the show.